First Alert meteorologist Eric Green said landspouts look and behave like tornadoes, but they are not technically tornadoes and do not receive EF classification from the enhanced Fujita scale.

A tornado is a cloud extending toward and finally making contact with the ground, and the swirling/rotating debris is actually condensed water from the cloud, while a landspout is a swirling cloud of dust that spun up off the ground due to the storm cloud overhead.

During the drought, Green said there is so much low-level dust that land spouts and dust devils are more frequent and easier to spot.